Saturday, January 31, 2015

Even though I'm not sure who decides on these national food holidays, since it's National Hot Chocolate Day, I thought I'd write about Boston's most popular hot chocolate spot, LA Burdick near Harvard Square in Cambridge.

Other than their house signature hot dark chocolate, I also like LA Burdick because they serve single source/ single origin hot chocolates! When I went they had two different ones from Grenada and Ecuador.

I tried the Ecuador one, described to have "notes of black tea, cinnamon and earthy flavors ... robust ... with a very long finish". It was quite intense but I loved it, although I still had a hard time deciding if I liked the signature one better.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Gourmet desserts on wheels. Warm sweets to grab-n-go on the streets of cold New York in November.

I read about the dessert truck on LA&OC Foodie's blog, and as it turns out, my hotel in NYC was 4 blocks away from their afternoon stop! Score!

Walking down 55th Street, I quickly saw the truck as I approached their location: 55th and Lexington. Whee!Although their daily menu is small, it's quite sufficient and changes regularly, and all dessert items are easily priced at $5 with the exception of the warm molten chocolate cake at $6.

Since I'll be walking around, I wanted something easy to eat with my hands, so i got the warm brioche doughnuts (vanilla cream center, cinnamon sugar) - $5Warm, fluffy, sweet creamy center. These are some tasty donuts to come off a truck!

Hot chocolate (Valrhona and Guittard chocolates) - $5Rich and pretty dark and intense. The hot chocolate is better than what you can get at most restaurants in LA. I only wished it had kept the heat better against the blistering NYC wind :< style="font-weight: bold;">

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

I don't really drink coffee.But I still wanted to know what all the rave surrounding Blue Bottle Coffee is all about, so since I had time to wait around for a friend after landing in SFO last time, I took the BART down to Blue Bottle.

I had a hard time finding it since Mint is this tiny street that leads into a plaza and furthermore the entrance is not actually even on Mint (just go around the corner!)

The cafe is small, with a big rectangular table in the middle where people can sit on stools and enjoy their drinks (and no, there's no wi-fi).You can see their fancy machineries, chemex filters etc through a glass divider.Again, I'm not really a coffee drinker, so I ordered the mocha - made with Recchiuti chocolate.Just before this I finally tried out LaMill's (LA Mill? which is it?) mocha, made with Valrhona chocolate!Both are very good. I prefer the richer taste of the Valrhona, but coffee-wise? I can distinguish between bad coffee and good coffee, but not the variations of good coffee, so ...

I was merely enjoying time to myself on a cold day, and can't tell you much about their coffee!Their pastry selection is limited and pricey. When I was there the wait was not too bad until this group of coffee businessmen from overseas came and placed a giant order!Their staff is very friendly and helpful. Overall it was a great experience!

Oh I did finally take my laptop out into the plaza - where they have free wi-fi :)Blue Bottle Cafe66 Mint St.San Francisco, CA‎(415) 495-3394‎www.bluebottlecoffee.net